Kefir and spiders

Mad dogs and English men

Summertime and the livin’ is easy

Fish are jumpin’ and the cotton is high….

Well, not exactly. Frogs maybe but even then…

Officially it’s not even that hot- I have always said is above body temperature (37.5) is too hot. We are in the mid-thirties but we are not prepared for heat, most don’t have swimming pools or installed air con, It is so flipping hot, killer heat.

I can’t even look at my sheepskin slippers. My toes are grimy from standing in my crocks trying to water the spontaneous Atacama desert which has appeared outside. We are as limp as a wilted lettuce. The roses have abandoned all hope, the trees are droopy with half ripened greengage plums. The tangle weed has burst into white flower trumpets, plantains and daisies running amok. Up until last night I was dragging the hose around every evening but now we have a hose pipe ban, paddling pools are also banned, and Miliband wants to rip out air con from houses. Miliband?- it should be Multi-banned.

I haven’t been beyond the curtilage for days. I attempted it at four thirty this afternoon as I thought I should at least attempt some exercise. I reached the corner of our lane, a handful of odd steps away, and threw in the towel. Twenty minutes of fan bathing and I was still sweating. Drops of sweat are sliding down my face as I type. I have a tea towel beneath the laptop -if I don’t my forearms stick to the table. If I catch the postman or the delivery men I offer them cold water and it disappears, pints gulped down in one go. Our lovely neighbour in her nineties swears she is okay, just sitting it out inside. It’s like a Roman summer, but without the cooling sparkling waters of Castel Gandolfo- like swimming in mineral water blessed by the Roman Gods- or Ostia with hot sand and clam spaghetti.

We have been living in the dark, the shutters shut against the thinnest slither of boring sunlight. The curtains are drawn upstairs. The woolly carpet feels like a furry hot water bottle. Our stone house cottage does what it can but in the afternoon the black front door becomes a radiator too hot to touch. We gather around the sole air con unit like the Magi worshipping at the cradle of the baby Jesus. Tea has been abandoned in favour of sips of lime cordial squash. We are surrounded by a ring of anti-ant talc. I look forlornly across the lane. I bet they have really good refrigeration, but then they are undertakers so be careful what you wish for.

Parking is now full Italian-style defensive. If you can’t find shade then park with the sun to the back of the car so the driver’s seat doesn’t turn into a skin peeling furnace from Dante’s inferno. Sainsbury’s air con is blissfully soberingly chilly, but the fridges are all on the blink. They have melted into slippery puddles. The shelves are all empty, not a frozen pea, pizza or ice cream in sight.

But it has got a really weird déjà vu Covid vibe to it- empty streets, empty shelves and the only people moving the poor buggers, the heroes, who deliver the post and the Amazon stuff, the alarm clock workers who shoulder the burden of keeping the country working.

Anyway news from our corner of Blighty.

Before it got hotter than the sun Hugo and I tackled the garden. We were on daily trips to the dump. Firstly, the buddleia that had knocked down the wall had to go, then we started the jungle clearing. I am all for gentle swathes of flowers, Hugo is more slash and burn. The roses and other spikey plants fought back so it soon looked as if we were self-harming.

We were on orders to pull up the foxgloves as Mac and Eloise have bought a jet black Staffy puppy, the little piglet is now the star around which their universe resolves.

Thankfully the dead hay window boxes were repurposed as TV stand so we can watch the telly outside. I am going to get Hugo a string vest so he can look like Marlon Brando in a Streetcar called Desire.

Gradually the garden began to take shape again until we downed weeding mats and forks for a couple of outings.

What's that lurking beneath the tree?.

We went to the Jericho London Festival of Writing. I took Hugo as my plus one for the gala dinner. During the day he would entertain himself.

‘Can I go and buy myself something pretty?’ he said before realising that his new shoes gave him blisters.

‘No - but you could pretend to be an Agent- you’ll be like the Pied Piper followed around by hoards of middle aged women tripping up as their large grey knickers waft to their ankles’ I said this with a slightly brittle laugh as he is catnip to lady writers.

I met loads of interesting other writers. The passion for writing, albeit with a thick vein of desperation, was palpable. The organisers kept warning us not to be weird or mad but to act normal which I found intriguing but didn’t dare ask for examples. It was quite fun looking around the auditorium playing a mental game of ‘Guess the genre’ and ‘Spot the Mad person’- or is it me?

I was there to hawk my debut memoir -major excitement I had two 1-2-1’s with agents both of whom asked for full/partial manuscript of CRUSHING NETTLES (apparently you have to write the title in CAPS – very odd) Mind-blowingly one said to present it as literary fiction, not memoir. I love this idea!

And I was long listed for their first 500 words prize! (even though both agents said to ditch the prologue) It was actually quite funny, I had been trying to inhabit my pseudonym all weekend but when the list went up there was my real name (spelt wrong) in all its naked glory. So when I stood up for the applause the others around the table looked at me as if I had misfired and gone a bit wonky as there was no Pia Whitmartlet on the list. Honestly though I was so thrilled. I despatched the full manuscripts on return. I googled ‘When can I ask the agent if he likes it? And google says strictly not before 3-4 months. Purgatory. So this might be the zenith of my literary career, or the opening of a door. In the restless excitement I decided to reorganise my study. Regret was instantaneously. My study has officially exploded.

Upgrading my diary boxes. Kinda wish I hadn't started...

*

As part of Hugo’s health kick I have been attempting to cultivate Kefir. When I had it at Queenie’s parents’ house it was absolutely delicious and full of fermented food health benefits. Along with the sour dough starter, and trays of eggs laid by their free range ex-battery hens it exuded a healthy Country Living vibe. The lovely Sassy Morelle is an extended family member- do follow her delightful images on Instagram.

I did everything right. I fed the yellowy grains whole milk which they devoured. I left the lid open as being creatures I thought they might like to breath and left it on the turned-off Aga.

Day one, I accused the cat of dropping a log in the kitchen, but a thorough search revealed nothing. Hugo ate his overnight oats with reluctance and said it needed more oats and fruit. I put a tea towel over the top of the Kircher jar just in case.

Day two, I thought perhaps it was the crow’s revenge as the offensive smell had somehow formed a cloud at the top of the stairs beneath the loft hatch.

We have starlings nesting under the eaves on our side, but, according to our neighbours opposite on the opposite side, crows had flung a couple of tiles off and were nesting in the roof space and walking upright into it. The builder rebuilding the fallen garden wall was commissioned. With the roof repaired and the top of the stairs started to be haunted by this … decomposing smell. Was it dead crows?

[Short digression. I didn’t accuse Hugo. When we were first going out the cat, Tiger, was like the cat from Borstal. I don’t think he liked me as he saw me as competition for Hugo’s lap. At first Tiger increased the frequency of unprovoked bite attacks on Hugo’s ankles. When this didn’t work he announced his ownership by spraying on the plug sockets and fusing the house. Being master of the obvious I suggested resolving this with child plug protectors. Tiger then brought home mice on a daily basis. He ate them- bar their livers. But if they escaped they tended to give up their mortal coil behind the sofa. When we were still in the honey moon polite and gooey stage I couldn’t really say anything but every time Hugo moved a puff of disturbed air would arise from the sofa that was definitely not Hugo Boss. It got worse. Eventually we shifted the enormous sofa and found a long dead mummified mouse.

‘OMG it’s a dead mouse! I thought it was you!’ I said

‘You mean you thought my farts smelt of decomposing bodies!’ said sophisticated gent Hugo, aghast]

Hugo, did eat some of the overnight Bircher but looked longingly at the bitesize mini shreddies like a labrador that has seen the dried pig’s ear.

I clipped the Kircher jug shut, just in case, and covered it with the cloth

Over the next few days I preserved. I had a sense of nostalgia as I sorted out boxes of baby photographs from the study wondering if this was why the smell of regurgitated breast milk seemed to pervade the house. Hugo ate his Bircher somewhat reluctantly and I discovered a hot weather secret pleasure - eating fruit chunks straight from the freezer.

The following weekend Will and Queenie’s family treated us to Royal Ascot; hats, fabulous picnics, champagne, horses, singsong and more picnics. Not a cloud troubled the blazing hot sun. Zsa-Zsa and Friso came over from Belgium. He wore his great grandfather’s bowler hat from 1929, Zsa-Zsa wore a hat made by his grandmother with feathers from her great grandmother. I shook out one of my old work jacket and dress outfits and Will found me a feathered black hat which I nailed to my head. Feeling inspired from the conference I commenced a marketing campaign for my book LAVENDER POTS – Where’s Sluggy? Wish me luck.

[LAVENDER POTS-by Pia Whitmartlet available at all the usual culprits and on the link in my substack website]

We all arrived home tired, after blazing hot Royal Ascot.

Zsa-zsa opened the front door and reeled backwards. ‘What in the name of all that is evil is THAT SMELL’

I have drained the kefir grounds and put them in the freezer. I’ve bleached everything, three times. I have soaked the food waste bin. I got a bowl of dried lavender heads. I think that the aroma of camel inhabited Bedouin tent is starting to weaken. It will go down in the ‘Experimental Cookery’ section of my Literary Fiction and is a candidate for the Revenge is Best Served Cold chapter.

*

My son Will, gloriously passed his driving test a few months ago. I had bought him a mini to learn in 5 years ago, but it turned out to be dangerous. He has been sharing Queenie’s safer mini, scorning the SORN family Nissan Micra which has been parked on the front garden patiently awaiting its rehabilitation. He refused ‘as it is a girls car with eyelashes’ and Wills is a fully paid up beardy Viking. I love this Nissan Micra. My favourite car ever was the ford Fiesta I had in Rome for bouncing over the cobbles. The Nissan has a similar vibe- it’s like a go- cart, fits into any car parking space or narrow country road, it’s just a happy car where the soundtrack is always ‘Walking on Sunshine’.

Faced with having to cross the country on trains without aircon and with melting tracks Wills finally embraced the beloved Micra. The car has lived underneath the Magnolia Grandiflora tree for about two years barring an outing to the car doctor over the road for its MOT. So, it was somewhat gently crusted in tough, brown magnolia leaves, bird poo and an extensive silk kimono of spiders webs. Not being able to find the broom I attempted to remove everything with the mop (without success.)

We peeled off the headlight eye lashes we had put on when it was Zsa-zsa’s car. They were a bit stubborn as sitting in the garden for a while had somewhat baked them on. Now they are gone, but if you look closely, there are hints of girlie eye lashes still.

‘It’s bang on trend, a non-binary, trans car now’ I said jauntily. Wills pursed his lips.

Hugo jump started it then left for a boys weeks sailing in Cyprus. The next day I took Will to fill it up and take it to the car wash. It was hotter than an AGA roasting oven.

There was a particularly large spider, that had built a mop proof, Grade 2 listed web between the wing mirror and passenger door on my side. As we drove to the garage the poor thing buffeted about and then huddled its worldly possession close within its arms/legs. Sadly with my ladies brain, I forgot about him instantly. Wills filled the car with a slosh of petrol and I explained you have to punch in the car wash code in to the car wash machine. We lined up on the car wash rails, the stop light flashed red, the car wash clinked into life and we settled down for the brutality of a car wash. I think for those of my vintage carwashes evoke the distant violence of being attacked with a spat on handkerchief or a soaking face flannel.

In a moment of desperate high drama I realised that a mashed wet death was imminent for spidery spider who was now visibly quaking at impending doom.

‘Open the window! OPEN THE WINDOW!’ I shrieked at Will as the water and the spinning cloth thing charged towards us like a train thundering up the tracks to a bound lady.

‘NO!!! NO!!!!!!’

‘OPEN THE WINDOW!!!!’ YOU HAVE TO START THE ENGINE TO MAKE IT GO DOWN’

At the exact moment when the water and the spinning thing hit the windscreen the window went down. All the way. We had seconds, if that. The spider flinched, and cowered. On the second attempt caught him.

‘SHUT THE WINDOW!!!’ I shrieked as the first drops hit us.

‘SHUT THE WIND-‘

But it was too late.

I suppose if I had thought about it I could have hazarded a guess that the water in a car wash is jetted in sideways, at force. Directly in my ear, face, mouth and all over Will and the inside of the car. Will finally battled through force 10 winds and buckets of water and got the windows up. We were drenched. The interior was drenched. The water vapourised instantly and seconds later it was steamier than a Turkish bath missing only incriminating hand prints on the windows.

*

Rumours are that tonight the heat will break with thunder storms. I cannot wait. Rain dancing may be done.

I do hope you have enjoyed my rambling. If so do please do subscribe, restack and share amongst your friends for more nonsense and do please buy my lovely book LAVENDER POTS- once I am a ‘literary novelist’ who knows it might become a collectible!